“If you reopen every conviction, you’ll overwhelm the courts.”

Repealing the habeas deadline does not mean every conviction gets relitigated. Petitioners must still demonstrate a valid constitutional claim — the merits standard doesn’t change. What changes is that the courthouse door stays open. Texas has no filing deadline at all for state habeas in non-capital cases: an application under Article 11.07 of its Code of Criminal Procedure may be filed at any time, subject only to the equitable doctrine of laches — case-by-case fairness instead of a fixed cutoff. New York allows a motion to vacate a judgment “at any time” (CPL § 440.10). The overwhelming majority of prisoners do not have viable claims and will not file. Those who do have viable claims are, by definition, the people the system should be hearing.

“This is soft on crime.”

This is the opposite. When an innocent person is in prison, the guilty person is free. Every wrongful conviction means an unsolved crime and a victim without justice. Conviction integrity is not soft on crime — it is the definition of getting it right. Chief Justice Peterson, a conservative jurist appointed by Governor Deal, is not soft on crime. Seven of nine justices on Georgia’s highest court called for these reforms.

“the Conviction Integrity Act’s new institutions will cost too much.”

The Georgia Conviction Integrity Commission would cost approximately $1.5–2.0 million annually — 0.14% of the corrections budget. Meanwhile, incarcerating people who should not be in prison costs $75,000 per person per year. If the commission identifies even 20 wrongful convictions annually, it pays for itself. Bills A and B require zero appropriations. Legal access, plea reform, and prosecutor disclosure requirements in the Conviction Integrity Act take effect immediately without funding.

“Why can’t the court fix this itself?”

Chief Justice Peterson answered this directly: the problems are “creatures of decisional law” — rules the court created through decades of case-by-case decisions. The court could reverse course, but seven justices chose instead to call on the legislature to act. Why? Because legislative action is more durable, more comprehensive, and more democratically legitimate than judicial reversal. The legislature created the habeas deadline. Only the legislature can repeal it. The separation-of-powers case for legislative action is made in full on The Sleeping Giants, Argued →

“How do you know 2,500 people are wrongfully convicted?”

The 5% figure comes from a 2014 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which estimated the false conviction rate among death-sentenced defendants at 4.1%. GPS uses 5% as a conservative floor applied to Georgia’s approximately 50,000 felony prisoners. Because death penalty cases receive far greater scrutiny than non-capital cases, the actual wrongful conviction rate for the general prison population is likely higher. Virginia’s analysis estimated 11.6%. Even at the conservative 5% floor, that is 2,500 Georgians.

“Finality matters. Victims need closure.”

Finality built on a wrongful conviction is not closure — it is a second injustice. When the wrong person is convicted, the victim’s family believes justice was done while the actual perpetrator remains free. True finality comes from getting the right answer, not from stopping the question. Every exoneration in Georgia history has also been a cold case reopened.